Whitewash day-it's nobody's favorite. First we have to take everything out of the barn, and I do mean everything, from shovels and pitch forks to the calendar and the radio. We do most of that the day before the whitewash guys come. Then on the actual morning we get up extra-early, do the milking and chores and take out all the stuff we use every day. It is amazing how many cow collars, wrenches and bottles of fly spray can accumulate in one barn.

Next comes covering the things that can't be moved, but shouldn't be whitewashed. We put little sandwich bags on every single milk line inlet and pulsator mount on the pipeline, and on all the thermostats and fasten them with rubberbands. Big trash bags and feed bags cover all the electrical motors. There are a lot of them, expecially in the summer, when all the big fans are in use. We cover all the blackboards and cork boards where we keep track of cow information too.We use canvas for things like the vaccuum pump that are too big to cover with bags. It is a fussy, messy job.

When everything is removed or covered, we get to go to the house for breakfast, while we wait for the whitewash men to do their job. They bring in a huge truck that is equiped to supply hoses with lots of compressed air to blow down a year's accumulation of cobwebs and dust and then to spray on the whitewash like paint. It took them over two hours today.

We wait a while after they are finished to let the whitewash dry a little. This is pretty futile, but the worst part of the job is next and we want to put it off as long as we can. However, eventually, we have to go back to the barn to bring everthing we took out back in and to uncover everything we covered. This is a really messy job. Everyone ends up with whitewash all over their hair, skin and clothes. It is very drying and feels terrible. We always seem to find something we forgot to cover that is now sprayed a stunning white. This year it was the clock, which fortunately was easy to clean. We replace all the lightbulbs too. They are pretty grubby by the end of the summer and aren't really worth saving. Then we have to scrape every single walkway and stall to get rid of the flakes of whitewash that rain down all over, as the cows are afraid of anything new and strange. We fill the mangers with hay and grain so they won't see or smell whitewash there and hope for the best when it's time to bring them in. Some years they are afraid of the blank, white newness and won't come in, and then run all over when they do, instead of going to their stalls.

Eventually it is done, and the guys head out to mow and chop hay. I come in for a nice cup of coffee that I feel I really earned and wait for evening milking time. The barn looks nice and the milk inspector should be happy for a while too.
I sure am glad we only do this once a year.